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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Old World monkey


Any of some 100 species of monkeys (the catarrhine ["downward-nosed"] monkeys) that live in Africa, on the Red Sea coast of Arabia, and in Asia from Afghanistan to Indonesia. Catarrhines generally have a narrow nose, a narrow septum, close-set nostrils directed forward or down, bony ear passages, two premolars in each half of each jaw, a nonprehensile tail (if any), and hard patches of bare skin (ischial callosities) on the buttocks. Zoologists gather all Old World monkeys into a single family, Cercopithecidae. There are two subfamilies: Cercopithecinae, or monkeys with cheek pouches (macaques, baboons, vervets, mandrills, and others); and Colobinae, or leaf monkeys (langurs, colobus monkeys, proboscis monkeys, and others). See also New World monkey.

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WordNet: Old World monkey
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: of Africa Arabia or Asia; having nonprehensile tails and nostrils close together

 
Wikipedia: Old World monkey
Old World monkeys
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Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Suborder: Haplorrhini
Parvorder: Catarrhini
Superfamily: Cercopithecoidea
Gray, 1821
Family: Cercopithecidae
Gray, 1821
Subfamilies

Cercopithecinae - 11 genera
Colobinae - 10 genera

The Old World monkeys or Cercopithecidae are a group of primates, falling in the superfamily Cercopithecoidea in the clade Catarrhini. From the point of view of superficial appearance, they are unlike apes in that most have tails (the family name means "tailed ape"), and unlike the New World monkeys in that their tails are never prehensile. Technically, the distinction of catarrhines from platyrrhines depends on the structure of the nose, and the distinction of Old World monkeys from apes depends on dentition. In platyrrhines the nose faces sideways and in catarrhines the nose faces downwards. Other distinctions include both a tubular ectotympanic (ear bone), and eight, not twelve, premolars in catarrhines.

Several Old World monkeys have anatomical oddities. The colobus monkeys have a stub for a thumb to assist with their arboreal movement; the Proboscis Monkey has an extraordinary nose while the snub-nosed monkeys have almost no nose at all; the penis of the male Mandrill is colored red and the scrotum has a lilac color, while the face also has bright coloration like the genitalia and this develops in only the dominant male of a multi-male group.

The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, but are also known from Europe in the fossil record. They include many of the most familiar species of non-human primates such as baboons and macaques.

Classification

Two subfamilies are recognised, the Cercopithecinae, which are mainly African but include the diverse genus of macaques which are Asian and North African, and the Colobinae, which includes most of the Asian genera but also the African colobus monkeys.

See also

References

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Extant primate families by suborder
Strepsirrhini Cheirogaleidae · Lemuridae · Lepilemuridae · Indriidae · Daubentoniidae · Lorisidae · Galagidae
Haplorrhini Tarsiidae · Cebidae · Aotidae · Pitheciidae · Atelidae · Cercopithecidae · Hylobatidae · Hominidae

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Old World monkey".  Read more

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